For my little brother
= For my little brother = My promise The ground was warm and unsettling, about as warm as the air that sat above it. The crunching of plastic was audible as I walked, stirring whatever was hiding underneath the surface. In the distance, I could see smoke rising, a weak breeze blowing some of it over at me. The strong, pungent smell of burning copper, plastics, synthetics, toxicity. It was like waving a gigantic flag, signalling for Death to come and pay us an early visit. I dug my hands into the earth, polluted dirt as they say, and groped around looking for anything worth extracting. Bottles. Containers. Milk jugs. Bubble wrap, even. Whatever that was thrown out and discarded by its original owner was a bounty, at best the ability to afford food for another day. Anything that wasn't too badly damaged or could be easily cleaned up and repaired was gathered and collected to be sold later on. My hands came across something rough, its sides filled with grooves and patterns. I pulled, slowly at first, and then with a sharp yank, using my feet as support to keep myself upright as I leaned backwards to get at whatever I had found. Finally, it popped free, sending me tumbling down the hill. I fortunately had little to travel before I reached the bottom. I looked at my hands. A plastic jug, otherwise intact except for a small tear near the spout. I placed it gently onto the pile of my total finds for the day and resumed searching, digging, "scavenging". It's a life nobody wants to live. Nobody came here because they loved the smell and sight of garbage. They came because they had a choice, a very simple one: They could sit in their homes and starve, or go to the mountains of litter and recycle whatever they can find, reselling them to provide for their starving stomachs. Many of these people had families, and only those who were sane would live here if it meant their children could at least be fed. I looked up. The sun was beginning to set, staining the clouds in the sky with a dirty yellow. I gathered my findings into my arms and began to descend the hill. "Smokey Mountain", they called it, named for the smoke that frequently arose from the hill as tires, copper, wood, even coal, were burned by the locals. The air is toxic. Every minute I stand breathing it kills me a little bit inside. But I would die faster if I avoided the hill altogether, for the hill meant money. Money to buy food. The hill often provided us with food itself. Food, discarded food, from the various restaurants and food courts across the city. It is cleaned and cooked, and then eaten. We call it pagpag, and if it's cleaned and cooked properly, it is safe to eat. The day begins early in the morning, when the garbage trucks come and unload their cargo onto the mountain, having collected it from around the city overnight. Scavengers, people who make their living picking from the scraps of Smokey Mountain, flock to the trucks like sheep to a shepherd, lost souls to Jesus, as the trucks brought them what they needed to survive. The early bird gets the best worms, while those who arrive late can only hope there is something valuable still buried deep beneath the filth. They had to work quickly as well, collecting as much as their arms could carry before workmen, seated in large digging machines, shovelled the garbage into barges docked nearby. They were hoping to prevent another Smokey Mountain from appearing, another artificial hill that echoed the sounds of wasted, discarded souls. I placed my loot beside a group of women, who were counting and sorting the heaps of garbage into different bags. Everything had to be carefully organized and measured for scavengers to receive a fair payment for their work. On a good, profitable day, a scavenger could hope to make up to 500 pesos. It was usually enough to feed themselves and their family for at least one more day. A woman began to go through the things I have found, examining everything closely for rejects. Some things, she set aside, knowing that they were far too mangled and damaged to be reused. A number of others, she tossed into the bags, ready to see life again. Finally, she reached into her pockets, counted 200 pesos, and handed it to me. "God bless your family," she said. I took the money without argument. Any amount that one could hope to earn in this place was a luxury, a blessing, a gift. If you got angry and tried to debate with the women who paid you, they could simply close the discussion by sending you home empty-handed. It was easier to accept their judgement as fair than it was to try and entice them to give you more. Every little bit that I earned went to feeding my mother, my younger brother, and myself. It was just enough to get by, just enough to survive, but nothing more. All over Smokey Mountain were huts, impromptu shelters, erected using whatever material was available nearby. Most of them were scrap metal, hammered and screwed together haphazardly, rusting at the edges. A few of them were solid, wooden structures that fared poorly when faced with an errant spark from a nearby fire. None of them had running water, no toilets or indoor plumbing, and most could only receive electricity at night, when the generator was running. The generator could not run 24 hours a day, and could not keep all the lights on, due to its age and condition. Most families used portable lamps and flashlights instead to save on electricity, a few daring to use candles in their flammable construction. The ground was slightly squishy, almost like sponges, due to the compacted layers of trash underneath, making for a very poor foundation. Landslides were not uncommon, burying houses and bodies underneath to later be excavated by hungry scavengers. There was no set system for handling the dead — people who died simply disappeared. I was fortunate not to have to live on the mountain. Surrounding the mountain were large towers, government housing projects built to house the dislocated when the original Smokey Mountain dump was shut down. Inside, units were so small and uncomfortable that residents only used them for sleeping, living their lives instead in the communal areas. At the base of the towers were a number of small slums that housed those "fortunate" enough not to be in government housing. It was in one of these houses that I lived, dwarfed and sandwiched by the towers and the mountain. At times, the mountain seemed taller than the towers themselves, acting like its own addition, its own spot, in the city's skyline. I turned down the street I lived on. The houses seemed small and dreary, as if they were shrubs and bushes on the forest floor, having their share of sunlight stolen by the bigger trees in the canopy above them. A few of them had their lights on, still others with smoke rising from their chimneys. The door to my house was open. I entered the house and placed my arms around my mother, who was seated in a chair, lost in her thoughts. "Ma," I said, "I'm home." She nodded slightly and pointed to a bowl of food. Pagpag, meat and vegetables salvaged from the mountain, cleaned and then cooked. A few spoonfuls of rice as well. Looks like she was able to go and buy some today, I thought. I took the bowl and sat down on the couch, eating very slowly and carefully. Any wasted food is money wasted, and thus we hardly ever wasted food. Food dropped on the ground had to be eaten, as it was too precious to let go to waste. My brother, my younger brother, Evan, was beside me. He was four years junior to me, being only two months past his sixth birthday. He hugged me closely and laid his head on my lap, like he always did every day when I came home from the mountain. I put my right arm around his body and we sat there together, quietly eating, contemplating. I often thought about my monotonous life and how I wished, oh just wished, for something to turn the tide, something to create ripples in my life, something to make it interesting, and at the very end, something to free us from our own prison. As for him... I was never entirely sure what Evan thought of. My older brother, Julio, was in the lounge chair, seated perpendicular to it, his head and his feet jutting out from the sides. My brother was seldom home, often being gone for days at a time. My mother was initially angry, then timid, then sad. Soon, she simply began ignoring him, looking past his shoulders and not cooking his meals. He was barely affected, as he always seemed to be able to find something for himself to eat, never sharing any of it with the family. He did little, if anything, to help us, like he was doing now, staring fixedly at the ceiling, lacking any purpose, any job, any role in the house. About two years ago, my father left the family. He told us that he was moving to a different part of the city, where he heard there was lots of work and prosperity. I remember the night before he left, when I could hear my mother and my father arguing with each other. Mother was crying, father was determined to leave. "I will send you money, any amount that I make," my father said. "It is for our children, and for our sake; we cannot live our entire lives picking from the dump and eating pagpag!" But my mother would not approve. "No amount of money could console me knowing that you have become a criminal!" Father was gone the next morning, leaving behind my brokenhearted mother to care for her three sons. Money became tight, and we barely had enough on the table to feed half of us. While a few local schools offered free classes, my mother felt that our education was less important than our very ability to survive, even if it meant working at Smokey Mountain for the rest of our lives. So we forwent school, and all three of us instead became scavengers, gathering recyclables from the mountain of garbage to be resold. Without our father's strength and guidance, we together were only able to provide just enough money to feed everyone. None of us had time to study or do anything else. A year later, Julio became sick of scavenging. Early one morning, as we were leaving for the mountain, he turned in the opposite direction and, with a small, almost insignificant wave, walked away from us. He didn't come back that evening. My mother became distressed, wondering where her son went. She asked our neighbours, asking if they had seen him, but he had seemingly vanished. About a month later, he came back a completely different person, as if aliens had abducted him and altered his personality. My mother was relieved... and relief turned to anger as she questioned my brother. Julio gave her — and us — the cold shoulder for a few days. He did not explain to us where he got his gold necklace or the tattoos on his arm until one evening, when he finally broke his silence. He had joined a street gang, specialized in the production and transportation of smack. I later learned this to be the byword of heroin. He claimed that he did it to try and bring home some money, something for the family to use, but my mother would not accept the money he produced from his pockets. "I won't lay a finger on that dirty money of yours!" He begged, pleaded, for mother to accept the cash, before he threw it at me, making it snow pesos all around me. "Take it, Garrett," he said before leaving the house. I stared at the money before my feet. Money meant food, schooling, a future. I bent down to pick it up, but my mother slapped my hand away. "I will not use money from the Devil!" She swept the money into a big pile outside and, much to my surprise, set it on fire. All the neighbours came running, trying to beat out the flames, get their hands at the money, accusing my mother of "wasting what we could all use to eat!" My mother had no response. She retreated to her room, and from her closed door, I could hear her cry. After that, he came back only intermittently. One day he's home, the next he isn't. When he did come home, he never ate with us, claiming that he had already eaten. My mother no longer prepared his portion of dinner, let alone acknowledged his presence. He never spoke to any of us unless he needed to, which was uncommon. He was about as foreign to me as a Martian, an extraterrestrial. That's him, right now. If I burst into flames and burned to ashes right now, I don't think he would've raised an eyebrow. Evening stretched into the night. I looked up at the clock and tapped my younger brother lightly on the shoulder. "It's time for bed, Evan." My brother rose and made his way to the bedroom. He half-walked, half-sulked. I knew how much he wanted to go to school, to not go to the mountain, to not have to rummage through people's garbage to eat. I hated seeing him like that, seeing his childhood spoiled, wasted, discarded. I close my eyes and tried to imagine happier days... days when the mountain was our playground. Days when, after school, we would climb to the top and come bounding back down as fast as our legs could carry us, leaping over heads and obstacles as we went. We were still poor, still had to eat pagpag, still had to live in a cramped house on a miserable street. But what we lacked in physical possessions, we had an abundance of love and energy to share, to go around. Looks like we ran out. I looked to my left. My mother had busied herself with housework, cleaning the floor, the table, the furniture. With so little space in the house, she'll be done in no time. I looked at my older brother and shrugged. Who cares about him? I thought. He's doing just fine on his own. I got up, splashed my face, and then my hair, with water. Water was such a precious commodity that even a shower was far too wasteful. We supposedly had running water, but service was erratic and whatever came out of the sink was often murky and filthy. Some say that those in the government housing buildings used all of the water, leaving none for us. All of our water had to be bought in plastic bottles, which didn't come cheap. And without our father, water was our gold. The most we could do to keep clean was a sponge bath, which left the washcloth black from all the grime. Eventually, I forwent the cloth and scrubbed myself the best I could with my bare hands. I looked somewhat clean after that, at least. The bedroom was dark. My brother had already gone to sleep, or at least, I thought he was. I removed my shirt and, trying to keep quiet, climbed up to the bunk where I slept and lay there. The warm climate meant that blankets were seldom necessary, if not a curse. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. A few minutes later the door opened, and my older brother entered, not bothering to keep quiet. He shut the door loudly behind him, headed straight for the spot where he slept, and in the blink of an eye, was out like a light. My younger brother slept in the bunk under mine, my older brother getting the floor. My elevated position in the room, combined with the fact that heat rises, meant that I had to wallow in my own sweat every night. On the plus side, it meant that I didn't have to be kicked every time someone got out of the bunk, which my older brother had to endure, as our bedroom was very, very small. My younger brother had the best position, and by unanimous agreement, was permitted to sleep in the "king's bed" indefinitely. When my older brother wasn't here, I could have gone down to enjoy the coolness of the floor, but always found myself longing for the top bunk again. For a few minutes, the room was silent, save for the slow and steady breathing of its three occupants. I could hear my mother shuffling as she retired to her own bed, the groaning of the springs in her mattress, the lights being turned off. The movement of fabric under me as its occupant shifted, trying to get into a more comfortable position. The breathing became steady, consisting of deep, lengthy breaths. More movement, accompanied with a small sigh. I felt sleep coming to me, about to end the day, finding it harder to open my eyes with every passing second. I was about to go out when a voice asked, "When will I be able to go to school again?" Julio never responded to my brother's "midnight questions", even in the best of times. It was always me who answered. "Someday," I said. "Someday, when this is all over and we can all forget about this. Maybe, if dad comes home... if he's still alive." "What if he isn't?" I sat up and looked down at my brother. His eyes were open, wide open, a clear indication that he was a long ways off from sleep. "Then we make do with what we have," I said. "We'll keep living our lives. We pray, hoping for something to happen." My brother shifted uncomfortably, and I could tell my answer did not satisfy him. "That might mean I will be a scavenger for the rest of my life. I don't want to be a scavenger. I just want to go back to school, want to learn, laugh, play..." Julio let out an audible sigh, as if to say, "Oh, shut up!" But I couldn't say that to Evan, not in a million years would I dare myself to do so. I loved him too much for that. I got out of my bunk and climbed down, taking great care not to step on Julio, although I don't think he would've cared one way or another. I knelt down, getting down to my brother's level. "Why did dad have to leave us?" he wondered aloud. "If he stayed, I'd be in school right now. We wouldn't have to be on that dump the entire day." I remained silent for a little while, not knowing what to say. My presence seemed to aggravate Julio, but comforted my younger brother, who relaxed and stopped fidgeting. Even I wished that he would be able to go to school. I hated the sight of him on the mountain of garbage, digging through heaps of refuse, looking for anything recoverable. He looked so young, so innocent... someone who shouldn't have to live like this. He deserved, no, needed to go to school. But how? Finally, I spoke, in a voice that almost lacked strength, confidence, courage: "I... I'll make sure you go to school." My brother gave me a funny look. "How?" Good question. I'll crawl through broken glass, under barbed wire, walk over fire, swim across an ocean, even get kicked and beaten, if somehow it would mean you could get the education, the opportunities, you desired. I'd travel the ends of the world, take a bullet between my eyes, bleed till I dropped dead, if it made your dreams come true. But all that came out was, "I'll find a way. I promise, I will." "You do?" From behind me, Julio turned his back towards us. I could sense him wanting to say, "Garrett, you and your childish fantasies..." But it's not a childish fantasy! I extended my pinky out to him. "Yes, I do." He was hesitant, at first, as if he was afraid of causing me unnecessary grief and burden, but he offered his own pinky and cemented my promise. He wanted to say something, but tears had already begun to form in his eyes. I felt like crying too. I thought I had just glued myself to a commitment I couldn't fulfill. Exits Julio was gone the next morning, long before the rest of us woke up. He never told anyone where he went, or why. I'm not even sure why he comes home in the first place; if he's so well-off wherever he goes, why come back? We ate a small breakfast. We had to be quick, in order to get to the mountain before the first garbage trucks arrived. Smart, successful scavengers fleeced the trucks as they approached the dump, many even climbing aboard to get their hands at the bounty while it is still fresh. We get a lot of pagpag this way, before it gets a chance to spoil in the heat of the day. We're running now, getting there before it's too late. Mother stays behind to lock up the house; she fears the day when someone breaks in and takes what little we have away from us. My brother holds my hand, like mother had ordered him to, looking to me for security, safety, leadership. I did not mind, even though it slowed me down a bit. The garbage trucks had just arrived, in them the city's garbage that they had collected overnight. People were already scaling the sides of the truck, trying to get into the hopper, trying to get at the loot first. My brother was too young to climb up a moving truck. "You be careful, alright?" I said to him before running towards the truck. He followed, keeping a healthy distance from the truck. He knew the drill — we did it every day. I ran alongside the truck and grabbed the handle, pulling myself up on board, taking great care not to allow my limbs to get caught on anything. Some ill-mannered scavengers often used other bodies as leverage to help themselves up to the hopper. My small size and strength made it very unlikely, but my mother wanted me to stay on the safe side. "Just come home alive is all I'm asking," she often said. I reached the hopper, where the pile of trash was rapidly disappearing as the scavengers attacked it with full force. I filled my arms quickly with Styrofoam food containers, all of them packed with uneaten food from the night before. My brother was beside the truck, his arms ready to catch. I threw the containers down at him before scrounging the hopper for more. Having his help was a luxury many did not have, for I could simply toss him all the valuables rather than filling my pockets, and later the insides of my shirt, with trash. A few brought bags with them onto the truck, which became bulky and heavy as they filled. Many of them gave out under the pressure, spilling their contents back into the truck. Occasionally he would miss, and someone else would come and swipe the dropped objects before he had a chance to pick them up. I made sure he didn't get into any fights, willing accepted having his cargo heisted before him. It was cheaper to lose profits than it was to deal with the drama of having a brawl. Soon, the truck was empty. Well, at least, devoid of all the smaller, portable materials, leaving behind only the larger, bulkier items that were too heavy to be thrown out of the truck by hand. I looked down at my brother, who had his arms full. I scrambled out of the truck and jumped down to the ground. "How're you doing?" I asked. I thought he smiled. "Tired," he responded. I opened a bag and filled it with all the non-foods we had collected. Plenty of plastic bottles, jugs, cartons, cups, spoons. Many shopping bags, all of them punctured with holes like Swiss cheese. Today, we had some luck: entire spools of copper, electrical wires, all undamaged. They were worth more than common plastic, which was everywhere. I tied up the bag and slung it over my shoulder, my brother carrying the unprocessed pagpag. It had to be cleaned and cooked soon, before they spoiled and became permanently inedible. "You did good today, Evan," I said. "Someday, you'll be a good scavenger." He did not respond. I wonder if I had just stabbed him with my words, left a hole in his chest, letting him bleed. ---- "Hey you!" a voice called out. They must be referring to me, I thought. "Yeah you! I'm talkin' to you!" No... No, I don't want to talk to anyone. "Get me some water, will ya?" How hard is it for you to go and get it yourself? You're closer to the jug than I am. "I know you're ignoring me," the voice insisted. There was a brief pause, occupied with the sound of a fork scraping against a plate and food being shovelled into a mouth. "Don't make me come over there; I will if I have to, though!" Just leave me alone... My mother has left me, and maybe my brother has too. I'm all alone in this world. I'm better off dead right now. Just let me die up here... please just let me die... "I wasn't kidding, kid. Get me some damn water or I'll remind you who runs this place!" At this point, I had no response. I covered my eyes with my arm, hoping to shut everything out, retreating to my inner depths, where nobody could reach me. My body felt like a castle, a bunker, for my soul to hide in. I felt like burying myself in my own body, becoming my own coffin, my own grave, my own resting place. Despite my best efforts, though, I couldn't block out the sound of a chair being pushed back as its occupant rose. "You've got five seconds to get your ass movin' before I get there." One. Two. Three. His footsteps grew louder and more menacing as I counted the seconds, perhaps the seconds towards my doom. Or at least, what he thought was a suitable punishment. Four. He was almost on to me now. I could almost smell his bodily odours as he neared, which reeked of a teenaged male that hasn't seen a shower in months, maybe years. I could also feel the heat, the glowing flames of his disgust towards me for snubbing him. In my right mind, I would've scrambled and gotten the hell away from there. I had no motivation to live, however, no desire for life. I simply lay there, waiting for him to come to me, like an executioner to his victim. Five. Two hands slammed down against the shelves, causing them to rattle and shake violently. "You deaf, dumb, and blind?" he said in a dangerously low tone. "I asked for water, not you havin' a doze." The room grew silent. All the other boys had turned their heads to look. They all knew who the king of the cell was, and they became uneasy whenever he was fuming. Now, I had angered him, provoked him, almost begging him to unleash his whip, which the other boys were petrified of. The boy snorted. "Must be mute as well. What, did your mother pull your tongue off? Is that why you can't speak?" The shelves shuffled slightly as the other boys on it shifted to add distance between themselves and the scene, which was building up with every passing second. I couldn't be bothered to care. I wanted nothing, I asked for nothing. I already lost everything except my physical life, maybe I should lose that too. The two hands shot out and grabbed my shirt, lifting me up into the air. I was startled, but did little, if at all, to fight back. "How bloody hard is it for you to pour me a fucking glass of water?" he barked into my face. "Five seconds of your life that you instead wasted for a catnap!" I tried to speak, say something to defend myself. But my throat and my mind were empty, lacking any eligible words to speak. My body was also hollow, not even bothering to try and wriggle out of his grasp or to lash out and kick him in the chest, to try and stand up for itself. "You are one sick, son of a whore," he said through his teeth. His right fist clenched, and with a powerful swing of his arm, sent it charging into my stomach. The pain was registered immediately, as was the air being knocked out of my lungs. A sharp cry of pain escaped my lips, which echoed through the entire cell, the prison, my head, my mind. I crumpled forward, taking the pain like a tree taking the blow of an axe to its trunk. I tried to breathe, but had no strength to draw any air in, only managing a few choking coughs. I tasted blood, creeping up from behind my mouth, thought I would cough it out, cough out blood. His left hand, which still had my shirt, released me, dropping me to the cold, concrete floor. I curled up into the fetal position, trying to hold myself together, keep myself from falling apart. I coughed violently, several times, as liquid migrated to the opening of my mouth. I spat, trying to clear the passageways, and small amounts of blood came out, settling onto the floor beside my head. My breaths were nothing more than loud, fruitless wheezes as every breath took monstrous amounts of strength that I did not have. It would've been easier for me to just stop trying, stop trying to breathe, stop trying to live. The boy came over and towered over my helpless body. "Shithole," he muttered as he put one foot on my head and rolled it over, hitting it against the shelves. He turned around and pointed to another boy. "You!" he barked. "Get me some water, will ya?" After seeing what had happened to me, there was no argument or resistance. I heard him running as he fetched the jug of water and quickly filled his master's glass. Several minutes passed. The atmosphere in the cell began to wind down. Conversation stirred up again, the boy who assaulted me resumed eating as if nothing had happened. No guards came rapping on the bars to see what was going on; as fights were such a common occurrence in the prison, none of them could be bothered. I lay there, alone. Alone as I was despite the fact that there were many other boys around me. I placed my hands and arms up over my head to shield them from the abhorrent nature of the outside world. Being careful not to let the other boys, especially my attacker, see me cry, I bit down on my tongue and let the tears fall. ---- Another sleepless night. The sweltering heat and humidity did little to soothe the pain. My stomach was still throbbing, now also accompanied by the strong sensation of hunger. I was in so much pain, I couldn't eat. Heat, pain, hunger. Combined together, they made sleep an absolute impossibility, an insomnia that made nights feel endless and bodies restless. I rolled over, or at least tried to, given the cramped conditions of the cell. The sleeping bodies of the two boys next to me were very close, so close that the tiniest movement could arouse them. A little more effort, and the boys would become dominoes, with the unlucky one on the end being rewarded with a drop to the ground, right onto the body of the boy under him. I moved very slowly, using no more energy than it takes to wiggle a toe or finger. After about half-an-hour, I was able to get from one side of my body to the other, facing the bars to the cell. I strained my eyes to get a good look, for I was afraid of moving my head. Bodies, sleeping bodies, stuffed into each other like sardines. Even those who were supposedly "privileged" enough to get the cool of the floor had to deal with limbs, hands, and feet in their faces, over their bodies, like a human knot. A few of them, who I presumed were siblings, had their arms around each other in a hug, sparing their neighbours a tiny bit of room. As a whole, it was a garbage dump, a dumping ground for children to be tossed in and forgotten. I was tossed in. And I was forgotten... No, you're not. I looked around. Was the voice real? It certainly felt like it was. I scanned the cell, looking for the origin of the voice, but found no suitable candidates. Everyone was sleeping... I have not forgotten about you. I have not forgotten about anybody in this prison. I have not forgotten about your family. Who is it? My mind came across a number of possibilities as to whose voice this could be. Finally, I whispered, in a tiny, tiny whisper: "...God?" Go to the moonlight. Light from the moon streamed through the bars of the cell and formed a small spotlight, illuminating the empty ground. Nobody slept there; the light was enough to drive any person foolish enough to try catching any shut-eye in the halo insane. Very gingerly, slowly, I began to move my limbs. I quietly undid my sandals, as it was easier to move silently without any footwear on. I held onto the shelf tightly, carefully moving my legs out one at a time. When both were free, I gently lowered myself onto the ground and tip-toed over the sleeping bodies, towards the halo of white light. I stepped into the light, which illuminated my body with a white, snowy glow. Look up. I tilted my head upward, towards the light. The moon stared back at me, its rough yet elegant beauty, its seas, ridges, and craters reminiscent of a grandmother's face. Surrounding the moon were stars. Countless stars, dotting and populating the night sky, with more of them appearing the longer I stood watching them. A band of white stretched across my field of view, looking like a lengthy river of spilled milk. Every dot, every single pixel of the view, had a star, a faraway star, its light having departed from its parent long before I was even born, going through empty regions of space before finally reaching earth, entering my eyes, telling me of its existence, an echo from a distant past. I blinked. Wait... this isn't possible. The prison was located in the city, and in the city, all of these stars would not be visible. Too much light, too much of our own existence. I brought you a sample of my creation, my beauty, my glory, the voice said. I am the one who created the moon, the stars, the universe that you see. I created the earth you are standing on right now. I created all the life, all the plants, the animals, from the smallest bacterium to the largest whale. I was speechless. The view of the night sky still had my attention, which now had more stars than ever. In the corner of an eye, I could see a streak of bright light as it fell downward towards the earth. A shooting star! Above all, I made humans. We molded them after our own image. I made your ancestors, your successors, your parents, your siblings. I made everyone that is living in this world today, and everyone that once lived, and those who will live. I made you, and I made you with your perfections and imperfections, your strengths and your weaknesses, your curves and your angles. I made you with a purpose, a role, a goal in life, a life that I personally breathed into you. Humanity I made to be the pinnacle of creation, to be the stewards of everything I made. I made humanity to care for the universe I created, and I made humanity to care for each other, to look out for one another. I did this all with love, a love for the universe I created, a love that still burns today. I put a hand up to my eye, rubbing away a tear that escaped. But why? I asked. If you made me, and if you love me, why would you let me get locked up in this prison? If you love everyone, why do you tolerate seeing your children rot with me in here? I do not tolerate it. I cannot tolerate it. I am against sin. The voice was firm and unwavering. Humans let the Devil in to my universe by sinning against me. They cursed my name. They disregarded me. They tried to reject me. But I made humans to specifically require me, to need me, to crave me. I am their missing puzzle piece. I made it that way. Nothing completes the jigsaw better than me. And I have a plan, a plan to save my creation. All of it. Every one of my children matters to me. And that includes you. If I had to choose between saving the entire universe except you, and saving you only, I would save you. You are, after all, the pinnacle of my creation. You are more precious to me than all of the galaxies in the universe combined. But if I really am more valuable than everything out there, how come I suffer? Suffering is how I make you stronger. You may feel weak now, but I promise you, the trials I put you through will help you grow. I will show you your talents, your gifts, the treasures I gave you the moment you were conceived. I gave you these as a gift, with the intention that you will use them to serve me. It sounds like a bad deal, but I am the one who made you, after all. I know what's best for you, and I won't refuse you what truly makes you happy. You will find it if you follow my plans, the way to me that I had in mind for you long before you were born. I cannot promise that it will not hurt, and I will tell you that it is difficult. But the most important thing you must remember is that I will not abandon you. I will always be there, and if you open your eyes and watch carefully, you will see me. My legs were beginning to give way like jelly. I got down on my knees, holding onto the bars for some support. What do you want me to do? Was imprisoning me part of your plan? Yes. However, I did not put you into prison for you to rot. I put you here for two reasons: One, I put you in here to see the corruptness of the judicial system here, to see how my wandering sheep are, instead of being brought back to the herd, considered to be hopeless delinquents and are ignored by the people who should have been helping. And two, so I could show you what your family really needs. What do they need? I wondered. I did all this because I believed my brother needed a future, an education, and my family needed money, a sense of hope and security. I left home to bring them that. They do need that, the voice responded, in a gentler tone this time. However, when you ran from home, you left them poorer than ever. Your mother believes she had lost her middle-born child to sin, like she lost your older brother and your father. She is completely devastated, believing that you had been possessed and lured away from her. But your brother... Yes! My brother! How is he doing? I wanted to know, badly. Every night is very, very painful, both for him and for me. He cries every night, finding it impossible to rest in an empty room, knowing that you have been taken away from him. He misses you terribly, he wails for you whenever he gets the chance. I cannot bear having to watch him go through that, knowing how much he really loved you. I know you love him too, that you miss him as well. My brother, Evan. I thought of him, thought about his face, his sweet smile, his laughter, his joyful and gay nature. It was a powerful wave of emotions, so powerful that I succumbed to it immediately. My posture collapsed and I came down to the floor, unable to stop crying. I understand why you left home. You wanted to go out and work hard to help your brother and your family. You were willing to go to the extremes to ensure that they could be happy, so that they would be well fed and have a prosperous future. That is why your mother named you "Garrett"; it means "brave, hard, strong". You were brave, incredibly brave, for going this far, and your strong-willed determination to make life better for your mother and your brother has kept you from turning back. But money and education, as valuable as they are, are nowhere near as rich as the love you can offer them. The richest bachelor on earth is poor, in my eyes, when compared to your family, but only if you are there to support them. Your brother, especially; after your father and older brother left, he turned to you because it was the only male influence he had left. If he lost you forever, no amount of money or knowledge would ever make him as rich as he was when he had you. I couldn't respond, even in my mind. Every bit of me had surrendered, like a picked rose that was losing its petals as the sun set and darkness arose, losing its beauty and strength as it died. I'm not brave, I thought. I'm not hard. I'm not strong. I've been drained, defeated. I'm finished. Anything but. I know this because I made you, and I know you better than anybody else, including yourself. I know that you still have the bravery, the courage, the strength, the hardiness in you to carry on. You are only ten years old. You have a long life ahead of you, I know it. I know because I planned it out for you. Whenever you feel like the life in you is about to give out, talk to me. I will hear you. I turned my head to look at the sky again. The moon and the stars were still there, shining brightly like an ocean of diamonds. Come home, the voice continued. Come home, for your family's sake. Families were designed to be together. Love is only meaningful if shared. The moonlight illuminated my tears, which glistened like wet paint. The sight of the night sky again took my breath away, its beauty unrivaled, forever out there as a symbol, a token, of its creator. I will, I said. I will. For my little brother. The wind was blowing, ruffling through my hair, my shirt flapping in the breeze like a flag. The toxic smell of garbage was almost pleasant to me, as was the sunset blinding my eye. In the middle of that sun stood a small boy, his back turned towards me, looking into the distance across the ocean at a horizon filled with red. "Evan!" I called out. The boy turned around, his face still concealed by the glare of the setting sun. "...Garrett?" he said softly, so soft that I wasn't sure if he actually said it or not. "Evan! It's me, it really is me!" The boy began running, running towards me. His arms reached out in front of him as he rushed to touch, smell, embrace the one person he longed to see again. I started to run towards him, hoping to close the gap between us quickly before something or someone could separate us again. He leapt into my open arms, almost taking me off my feet, and squeezed me tightly. I blinked, half-expecting my brother to disappear right before me, like he always has in my dreams. He didn't. Every bit of him was real this time, his flesh, his soul, his beating heart. I hugged him back, so tightly I thought he couldn't breathe. "G-G-Garrett..." He was crying. "I... I m-m-missed you..." He buried his face into my shirt, and despite the fact that it had several months worth of sweat and grime embedded into the fabric, he found more comfort in it than he would any tissue paper on earth. I turned my head and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "I... I missed you too..." I realized that I was crying as well, tears pouring out of my eyes, as if they had been bottled up within me up until now. With my right hand, I tried to brush away the tears, appear strong to my little brother, but my efforts were in vain. I finally gave up and allowed my brother to hear the audible sobs, which brought a wave of great relief as I wept freely. "P-P-Promise me you w-w-won't l-l-leave me again?" he said. I looked at him. His eyes told me everything I needed to know, that when he saw me in prison I had torn him to pieces, driven a knife into him, murdered him, left him to die. His youthfulness, his innocence, his boyhood, I had ruined for him. I knew that, if I left him again, broke my vow as his brother, I would have done away with him, ended him right there. Tears were still coming out of him, and the sight broke my heart. I brought him close, again offering my shirt to mop up the misery and grief I had caused for him. "I promise," I said. "I promise, I will never leave you and mother ever again. No matter how hungry we are, no matter how poor we are, no matter how much I want to leave, I won't. I will always be there for you, always in the top bunk if you need me at night, always listening so I can hear you when you call for help." "Do you really mean it?" he said in a small, small voice. I sniffled. "Yes... Yes, I do mean it." He was reluctant to let go of my chest, but eventually, we had to move on. I lowered him back onto the ground and he stood beside me, holding my hand tightly. He looked up at me, still crying, but one emotion dominating all the others: Happiness. It came back to me too. Hey, remember the good old days when the mountains of garbage was our playground and we'd climb up and come running back down as fast as our legs could carry us? You would piggyback on me squeal with delight as the air sped past you as if you were flying. And the times when I tripped and almost fell over but saved myself just before we hit the ground? You can't have forgotten — I haven't! I smiled. "Let's go back to mother, shall we?" He smiled back and, still holding onto my hand, began to walk. I remained still, catching him by surprise when his arm did not follow. He looked at me. "Aren't we going?" My smile grew bigger and bigger. "How about we run there, together, with you on my back, like we used to?" He appeared a bit confused, but not for long. With a boyish, lively laugh, he scrambled onto my back and wrapped his arms around my chest. "Ready?" I asked my passenger. "Always!" he said gleefully. "Well, let's go!" And I took off, running as fast as my legs could move, jumping over obstacles as I went, past the slums built onto the garbage dump, past the piles of burning refuse, onto the rough, paved streets of our neighborhood, down our small street towards our house. Out of breath, I set him down on the ground. "Last stop, everybody off!" as I used to say, and he laughed. He was about to run inside when he turned around and gave me an unsure look, as if he expected me to run away before mother could see me. "Go," I said. "I promised I will stay. I will never leave you again." He turned around and, entering the house, called, "Mom! Mother! Garrett's back! Garrett is finally home..." I looked up towards the sky, where the reddish hue of the setting sun was beginning to give way to the darkness of the night. "I promised him," I said, "and I promised You." Then I turned and headed inside the house.